Sorry to hear that your friend is in senescence, but I thank you for the amazing job you do of journaling your experiences!
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[Octopus]: Unidentified Flying Octopus & Baby Cuttlefish
- Thread starter Hahmlet
- Start date
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- cuttlefish octopus
Sorry for your loss, so glad that your cuttlefish are doing well!Cuttlefish Day 20 - 30 August 2023
Octopus Day 109 - 28 August 2023
- Doing well, eating 4-5 ghost shrimp a day.
- RIP my second octopus girl. She passed away the next day. Found her very pale white and tender looking.
Cuttlefish Day 43 - 22 September 2023
- OMG my baby girl laid her first batch of eggs! She just plopped them on the sand in her cave and now she's chillin' in another cave. I knew she was a girl!!!
- We initially estimated that she was 7 months old. So she's probably 8~9 months old by now. Would that be the right age for them to lay eggs? Or is she actually a lot older and nearing senescence?
- She obviously hasn't mated for a long time, since the LFS had her for 3 months, then I've had her for 1.5 months. Total of 4.5 months later she is laying eggs. Are those eggs definite duds?
Hard to see from the photo; the tell-tale that I'm aware of are the eyespots... if you see little black dots inside those eggs, they are likely fertilized... good luck!
I just did some research, so it seems like they can store fertilized eggs for weeks just like octopus, and sepia bandensis can lay eggs a couple of times, so it shouldn't be senescence yet.Hard to see from the photo; the tell-tale that I'm aware of are the eyespots... if you see little black dots inside those eggs, they are likely fertilized... good luck!
The cave is kinda dark. I have a brittle star, a sand star, strawberry conchs, and nassarius snails in the tank. Is it safe to keep the eggs in the cave?
Hmm, I just did a quick search but didn't come up with anything, but you may want to try as I'm SURE this has been discussed. Hopefully a fellow hobbyist / expert or two will chime in!
just to link the the threads, here's a thought or two on this from ChatGPT/open.ai (octobot)
Eggs and tankmates
Eggs and tankmates
I wish I had more experience with cuttlefish. Maybe @Thales could give you some advice?
Cuttlefish Day 48 - 27 September 2023
- The next day morning, my brittle star that was always next to my deep sea anemone in the second floor cave, had moved to the cave with the cuttlefish EGGS on the first floor!
- Its position was not on the eggs though. It was an arm's length away inside a crevice and one of its arms was touching the eggs.
- Super fishy!
- I decided to remove the eggs and place them in a breeder box, and found that 2 eggs were popped and only very little of the sack was left on the stem.
- This is just over a night since the eggs were laid, and my brittle star has never left second floor cave before, so it is very likely that brittle star did eat the cuttlefish eggs.
- The eggs are not well inflated and even after 5 days now have not expanded, so I feel they may be duds for now.
Sepia Bandensis Cuttlefish Day 50 - 29 September 2023
- My cuttlefish has not eaten on 3 occasions over the past few weeks, and I attributed the cause to high phosphates.
- Aside from not eating other symptoms she would show would be floating around clumsily across the tank with cloudy eyes and lightly bumping into things.
- The first time, I added RowaPhos and lowered the phosphates to below 0.37 PPM, and my cuttlefish started to eat again.
- On the second occasion my phosphates shot up again, so I replaced my RowaPhos and dropped my the phosphates to 0.7 PPM and surely enough she started eating again.
- Then on the last occasion I noticed my phosphates climbed above 1 PPM, so I added more RowaPhos and flow to the filter sock holding my phosphates, lowering it to 0.5 PPM which fixed the issue.
- So just last Monday I decided to invest on a phosphate reactor, and set up a small one in my sump. With half the amount of RowaPhos, it dropped my phosphates to 0.17 PPM the next day, and 0.05 PPM the day after.
- The problem is my cuttlefish stopped eating again. Hoping it's just sudden fluctuations to water parameters that might be stressing it out.
- Finally flamboyant cuttlefish are back on the market in Singapore and I managed to get one!
- Just a few quick observations vs. Sepia Bandensis:
- It is smaller, maybe even up to an inch smaller. I was charged extra and sold a big specimen for $130 (according to LFS, normally $180 for a pair), however it is smaller than my sepia bandensis female by a little.
- It walks with its arms, more than it floats around.
- It does not hide in the shade or in caves and instead sits out in the open, under the light. My sepia bandensis girl would be hiding in caves during the day. I suppose this is the difference between a diurnal and nocturnal species.
- It does not move much. It is currently on the same spot from last night, where it settled down and ate two shrimps from, in the middle of the sand bed. I suppose being poisonous and having less predators makes it less cautious. Every morning I would need to look for my sepia bandensis which would change spots and camouflage itself with its surroundings.
wow!!!! Perhaps my favorite ceph species; they are SO COOL -- congrats!! Looks great!
Interested in how your changes with the sepia develops from here.
Interested in how your changes with the sepia develops from here.
Sepia Bandensis Cuttlefish Day 51 - 30 September 2023
- My parameters are good with just Nitrates at around 16 ppm.
- But it's already almost coming to a week since my baby girl has eaten.
- Ok my flamboyant cuttlefish was acting quite nocturnal yesterday.
- During the day his colors were less vibrant, and he was not moving around much.
- Only at night did he start to really color up and move around.
- So I fed him a 4-5 shrimp last night.
- I believe my flow is too strong during the day which may be causing this. I have strong flow during the day which gets weaker gradually at night. I will try to lower my flow during the day to see if there are any changes to the behavior of my cuttlefish.
- Another difference with my sepia bandensis girl is when it comes to feeding, my flamboyant does not get as excited and go into warship mode. He just calmly and slowly catches the shrimp.
- Also he does not seem to eat the shrimp head.
My flamboyant is coughing often every other minute and one of his arms was pale/white yesterday, and today I can see it's about to fall off.
I recently saw some bristle worms in my tank, and I did see my cuttlefish facing it and following it around, although I didn't see it try to catch it, but perhaps it did while I was not looking.
Tried to do some research and I heard fire worms are dangerous! Can anyone identify from this picture?
I recently saw some bristle worms in my tank, and I did see my cuttlefish facing it and following it around, although I didn't see it try to catch it, but perhaps it did while I was not looking.
Tried to do some research and I heard fire worms are dangerous! Can anyone identify from this picture?
Sepia Bandensis Cuttlefish Day 57 - 6 October 2023
- The same blur/blind movements and reactions from my previous cuttlefish were shown by my female cuttlefish for the past 10 days and she passed yesterday morning.
- I tried a lot of different things to try and save her, from carbon to major water changes, turning off my phosphate reactor etc.
- Here are some speculations on her reason for passing:
- Intense lighting causing blindness that lead to starvation
- High phosphates that cause blindness or permanent damage internally
- RowaPhos overdose
- My flamboyant cuttlefish passed not long after my post. He was coughing all day, then I noticed a pale tentacle at night, the next morning it looked like it was going to fall off, then in the afternoon, it was gone.
- I did some more research and asking around, and I believe I have bristle worms and not fire worms in my tank.
- For now I somehow believe the cause of death was from some form of injury.
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